Stop Overthinking Fighting Games 

Yeah that's how I've always played fighting games! It's really good as someone who finds themselves overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that can come from seemingly endless combo routes some characters have. I normally try to find one simple combo for, midscreen, me in the corner, or my opponent in the corner and even better if my character has an anywhere combo and then I focus on that

I often think about your “one combo changed everything” vid!

To share a quote from Bruce Lee: "“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”"

"The key to winning is to abuse shitty tactics over and over, like crazy." -Justin Wong

I have very little combo game in any of these lol

This is exactly why if I recommend a fighting game to someone instead of sending them 30 tech videos to get started I invite them to just fight me. I don't fight back I basically just act like an interactive punching bag so they can get used to how things work at their own pace.

Tysm. That is the best tutorial for fighting games I've ever heard.

Alternatively: get a vibe for common special moves, like alternating attack buttons, light-light-heavy, holding forward or back and attacking, crouching and attacking, so on. You can walk into any game and any character (except maybe grapplers) and do modest work while you figure out cool moves. And depending on the game and matchup, maybe steal a round or three.

One thing I noticied is that quite a few players are stuck in a "ok, but now what?" situation when they can't pull off their perfect start of round interaction. Trying to reset the right conditions makes them predictable. Having one base combo you can pull anytime rather than crazy ones that need setup is always nice especially because well known optimal combos, everyone learn to counter them anyway! Good luck landing any of those without strong understanding of the game. Sure, you need more than two interactions to win with a basic combo, but it's satifying when you win the long game. The first thing I learn after that, is how to approach the opponents. It's useless to learn fancy combos if you can't even land the first hit, and always get punished when trying. By the time you got a good defensive base you'll figure out quite a few offensive options you wouldn't explore otherwise, and can start labbing from there to expand your own playstyle into something that isn't just following "optimal guides" that, again everyone knows about and will learn to defend against anyway.

This is literally the approach i always take to figthing games, i do actually recommend 2 combos for some games For example gran blue, because since most GBVS combos use the EX moves you cant do them twice in a row most of the time so learning a combo that has EX and one that doesnt is all you really need for that game at lower levels